With the introduction of a three-door refrigerator and a refrigerator equipped with a dispenser, sub-doors, etc., a recent trend of the refrigerator is for an increasing number of refrigerator doors according to its purpose and function.
As functions of a refrigerator are specialized to become subdivided, the number of customized doors tailor-made for a specific purpose is increasing. Accordingly, the doors are opened and closed in proportion to the increased number of the doors, thereby increasing an impact applied to a refrigerator main body. Therefore, there is a need to consider a shock absorber for the refrigerator door.
A related art refrigerator may include a main door for opening/closing the interior of the refrigerator, and a sub-door for opening/closing a portion of the main door. A lower end of the sub-door is pivotably coupled to the main door.
An impact and noise may occur when the sub-door is stopped while being pivoted to open/close the sub-door. To reduce such impact or noise, the related art refrigerator is provided with a damper inside the sub-door. In more detail, in the related art refrigerator, a damper is disposed inside the sub-door before expandable polystyrene (EPS) for filling inside the sub-door is injected into the sub-door, and then the expandable polystyrene (EPS) is injected.
Through such process, as the expandable polystyrene (EPS) gets hardened, the damper is fixed inside the sub-door.
However, according to the related art damper installation technique, since the damper is disposed inside the sub-door, the sub-door is thicker and a pivot mechanism of the sub-door becomes complicated.